London's anti-terrorist police said they foiled a plot to blow up airliners bound for the U.S. using explosives smuggled in hand luggage, five years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. U.K. authorities say they arrested 21 people overnight, Deputy Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson said today. The U.K. and the U.S. raised their terror alerts to the highest level. Sky News said six aircraft were targeted. Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, said as many as 440 flights may be canceled. ``This was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale,'' Stephenson said in a televised briefing. ``We are confident that we have disrupted a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction.'' A ``number'' of addresses in the U.K. are being searched, he said.
Britain raised its terror alert to ``critical,'' the highest category in a five-point scale, indicating an attack is expected ``imminently,'' according to the Home Office Web site. Airports were instructed not to permit hand baggage aboard flights, the U.K. Department of Transport said. BAA Plc, the world's biggest airport operator, told passengers to avoid Heathrow.
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